Greg Deans, a director of the Rabie Property Group, said there was a marked increase in the number of corporates who required high bandwidth and/or immediate fibre connectivity, looking to relocate to Century City which was helping to drive further new development.

“Part of Century City’s philosophy and its recipe for success is that it is always cutting edge, always out there, always planning for the future and always on the go. Even when no one else is developing we are. Century City Connect fits100% within that philosophy.”

Alfie Martin, a director of Century City Connect, said by April this year, six months after they had deployed the network, they had taken fibre past all premises within the precinct – a benchmark used internationally to state the reach or success of a fibre optic network.

He said the take-up of their services from existing businesses had also exceeded expectations with direct network access to 180 businesses completed to date with a further 120 expected to be completed by the end of September, bringing to around 300 the number of businesses with direct access. This, he said, constituted about 70% of all current businesses at Century City.

While Century City Connect provides the fibre optic backbone, individual businesses contract with an accredited Internet Service Provider (ISP) of their choice for the services they require.

“We have signed agreements with six ISPs to date and are currently negotiating with another five.”

Martin said they had been working closely with the accredited ISPs to introduce exciting new packagesand these varied considerably but included contended access package of 20Mbps, 30Mbps and 50Mbps options as well as dedicated access packages starting at 2Mbps and going up to 1Gbps.

“The first 1Gbps service has now been signed with a large international corporate user, which as far as we know is the largest and fastest managed service access package in the country today. The service selected by this customer will also include a fully resilient redundant link.”

He said while many users started off with smallish access packages, there was a growing trend of companies applying for upgrades within a matter of weeks.

“They are enjoying internet speeds they have never experienced before and their business requirements reverse into that speed so quickly that for many, particularly those that want to migrate to cloud services, VOIP and video conferencing, and still maintain the speeds they have become accustomed to requires additional bandwidth.”

Martin said while the majority of tenants in cities in South Africa had to wait for between three to six months for fibre connectivity, thanks to Century City Connect’s rapid deployment approach they could provide connectivity to any tenant within 10 working days.

Recently eProp published an article where EOH Network Solutions, and property and management company, Abacus DIVISIONS, are currently setting up a fibre optic testing facility at  Route 21 Corporate Park, Irene. It looks like buildings/locations need to be both green and smart to secure sustainable demand.